Other Words for Home: A Newbery Honor Award Winner

Dedication

This one’s for the Nazeks,

especially my father, who crossed an ocean,

my uncle Abdalla, who loved me from across one,

and my cousin Jude, whose name I borrowed.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Part One: Changing

Chapter I.

Chapter II.

Chapter III.

Chapter IV.

Chapter V.

Chapter VI.

Chapter VII.

Chapter VIII.

Chapter IX.

Chapter X.

Chapter XI.

Chapter XII.

Chapter XIII.

Chapter XIV.

Chapter XV.

Chapter XVI.

Chapter XVII.

Chapter XVIII.

Chapter XIX.

Chapter XX.

Part Two: Arriving

Chapter I.

Chapter II.

Chapter III.

Chapter IV.

Chapter V.

Chapter VI.

Chapter VII.

Chapter VIII.

Chapter IX.

Chapter X.

Chapter XI.

Chapter XII.

Chapter XIII.

Chapter XIV.

Part Three: Staying

Chapter I.

Chapter II.

Chapter III.

Chapter IV.

Chapter V.

Chapter VI.

Chapter VII.

Chapter VIII.

Chapter IX.

Chapter X.

Chapter XI.

Chapter XII.

Chapter XIII.

Chapter XIV.

Chapter XV.

Chapter XVI.

Chapter XVII.

Chapter XVIII.

Chapter XIX.

Chapter XX.

Chapter XXI.

Chapter XXII.

Chapter XXIII.

Part Four: Hoping

Chapter I.

Chapter II.

Chapter III.

Chapter IV.

Chapter V.

Chapter VI.

Chapter VII.

Chapter VIII.

Chapter IX.

Chapter X.

Chapter XI.

Chapter XII.

Chapter XIII.

Part Five: Growing

Chapter I.

Chapter II.

Chapter III.

Chapter IV.

Chapter V.

Chapter VI.

Chapter VII.

Chapter VIII.

Chapter IX.

Chapter X.

Chapter XI.

Chapter XII.

Chapter XIII.

Chapter XIV.

Chapter XV.

Chapter XVI.

Chapter XVII.

Chapter XVIII.

Chapter XIX.

Chapter XX.

Chapter XXI.

Chapter XXII.

Part Six: Living

Chapter I.

Chapter II.

Chapter III.

Chapter IV.

Chapter V.

Chapter VI.

Chapter VII.

Chapter VIII.

Chapter IX.

Chapter X.

Chapter XI.

Glossary of Arabic Words

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

PART ONE

Changing

I.

It is almost summer and everywhere smells like fish,

except for right down by the sea

where if you hold your nose just right

you can smell the sprawling jasmine and the salt water

instead.

In the summer, I always hold my nose to avoid

the stench of fish and

tourists that smell like hairspray

and money and French perfume.

The tourists come from Damascus and Aleppo.

Sometimes even Beirut and Amman.

Once I met a man all the way from Doha.

I asked him about the big skyscrapers that I have heard

reach all the way up to the heavens,

but Baba hushed me quiet before the man could answer me.

Baba does not like for me to talk to

Tourists

Strangers

Men.

He does not want me to talk to anyone that I do not know

and even people that I do know he always says,

Jude, skety,

and so I bite my tongue and it sometimes tastes even worse

than the way the summer fish smell.

Everyone is saying that there will be fewer visitors

from Aleppo this year.

That there is no one left in Aleppo to come.

That everyone who could leave Aleppo already has.

When I ask Mama if this is true, she says,

Jude, skety.

II.

Our city does not look like what they show on TV of Syria.

I remember the first time

Fatima and I saw a story

about Aleppo on the news.

We felt proud.

I know that is strange to say, childish maybe—

it felt strange even then—

but it also felt like the rest of the world

saw

me.

But our city does not look like Aleppo, before or after.

It is not sprawling and noisy with buildings

pressed up against

one another

like they are crammed together in an elevator

with no room to breathe.

Our city is on the sea. It sits below the mountains.

It is where the rest of Syria comes when they want to breathe.

No one is going to come this year, Fatima says.

And I wonder if that is because there is no one left

who needs to

breathe.

III.

Fatima is twenty-four days, six hours, and eleven minutes older than me.

She did the math.

Fatima hates math, but loves

when she comes out on

top.

We have always been friends.

Mama and Aunt Amal have known each other

since they were girls.

We live across the courtyard from them and

sometimes when I was little,

I would squeeze my eyes shut at night and

pretend that Fatima and I

were dreaming the same dream.

When I was little, it was easy to imagine that.

Fatima and I were always in step,

four feet pointed in the same direction.

But the last few months have been different.

Fatima feels kilometers ahead of me now.

Her dark curls aren’t on display anymore,

tumbling to her shoulders

in unruly waves that remind me of laughter.

Her head is wrapped in silk scarves

that are bright and colored like jewels.

She is one of the first girls in our grade to cover.

She has bled between her legs.

I am still waiting

to bleed.

To feel like I have something worth

covering.

IV.

Fatima and I almost always have our asroneyeh together.

Either Mama makes it or Auntie Amal.

Fatima likes to have olives, green and black,

so fat that you can stick your fingers inside of them

and eat them one by one.

I think olives taste like the sea

and all that salt makes me dizzy.

I eat the jebneh and the bread

that Mama gets from Hibah’s bakery

around the corner

because she knows it is my favorite.

Hibah makes her bread as fluffy as a pillow.

I eat so much of it that Mama

always has to remind me that

asroneyeh is supposed to help me last until dinner,

but is not dinner.

During asroneyeh, we drink tea.

Or Fatima drinks tea and I drink sugar and mint

with a side of tea.

We watch old American movies that we bought

with our Eid and birthday money.

We watch Julia Roberts fall in love and

we watch Sandra Bullock track down criminals and

we watch Reese Witherspoon go to law school.

Fatima and I both want to be movie stars.

Fatima also wants to be a doctor,

but I only want to be a

movie star.

The wanting pulses so hard in my chest that it sometimes hurts.

My older brother, Issa,

used to watch the movies with us.

He would sometimes even act them out with us,

standing up on the couch,

imitating Reese’s way of speaking English,

all slow and sugary.

He used to until one day Baba came home from work early and walked in on us

acting out the movies. Baba didn’t say anything.

Not even Jude, skety.

He didn’t even look at me.

Only at Issa.

He shook his head

and walked into his bedroom.

V.

Fatima and I like to find bits

and pieces of ourselves in the faces of

movie stars.

We have decided that Fatima has Sandra Bullock’s

dark eyes that are so expressive you could tell

if she was laughing

even if her mouth was covered.

Speaking of mouths, I have one.

And it is big

like Julia Roberts’s.

At least that’s what I tell myself.

Someday

I hope I will be a movie star

and some other little girl will look at me and say

I have her eyes

her nose

her hair

her laugh

and she will feel beautiful.

Maybe

someday

Julia Roberts will see me and think

I have her mouth.

VI.

I am walking down by the shore

with my favorite person in the whole world,

my older brother, Issa.

We are strolling down the stretch of beach

that is open to everyone.

Only people who—like Issa and me—have always lived here

walk on this beach.

Only people who don’t have piles and piles of money

walk on this beach.

Soon, we will be able to walk anywhere we want, Issa says.

Things are going to change.

I follow his eyes to the other side of the beach

where there are plush white chairs

shaded by white-and-blue-striped canopies.

The chairs sit empty,

but they are not open.

The salty wind is whipping through Issa’s dark hair

and he is wearing his serious face.

His serious face is new.

Issa used to love to sing American pop songs

with me and Fatima

at the top of his lungs.

He knew every word of

Madonna

Whitney Houston

Mariah Carey.

Now he knows other words like

revolution

democracy

and change, change, change.

He is always talking about change.

My feet sink into the sand

and I realize I do not want things to change.

I want things to go back to the way they were,

which I guess is another sort of changing,

but it is not what Issa is talking about.

The sky is melting overhead.

The sun, like my feet, is sinking

lower and

lower,

swirls of yellows and dusty pinks.

Are you coming to dinner?

It still feels strange to ask my brother this question.

His presence at ghadah used to be as certain as the sunset,

but now that has also

changed.

Issa’s face switches again,

from serious to sorry,

and I know he isn’t coming.

I’m meeting Saeed and Yasmine, he says,

and Baba would tell you that my brother

and his friends

are plotting revolution.

Our baba is furious that Issa goes

to these meetings.

He calls them treasonous and

Issa says that it is our president

Bashar al-Assad

who is treasonous,

who is oppressing his own people.

Issa shouts at Baba about free elections

and real democracy

and unlawful use of force

and Baba shouts about stability

and